Everyone thinks analytics is all about the data. I hear amazing stories of petabyte warehouses, state vector learning algorithms, and every other aspect of the data. But it really comes down to the story: What is the data telling us about the world? This is the context, the relevance, the “impact”, all those pieces.

This comes, in part, from shared meaning. Once we all understand what a metrics is all about, then we can communicate with it. But if we make up something new just to be different, then we lose some of that shared meaning, communication disappears, and the story fades away. That story is the center of it all: if you can’t tell the story, then all you have is meaningless data.

And when it’s missing, its just painful to watch. Here are some examples:

RYG It’s very common to have Red/Yellow/Green status reports on projects. But did you know that people have different interpretations of RYG? My most recent team has this standard:

Green = Project completed

Yellow = Project in progress

Red = Project not going to complete

This seems strange to me. I think in terms of Star Trek: Green means everything is good, but when Yellow alert is called, well, get ready to bring the noise. And Red alert means that people wearing red shirts should just start writing their wills.

But in this version, we have a page full of “Yellows” which means that all is going fine… which, in Star Trek terms, should be Green. And given that I think this way, so do lots of others. So, when we review our status with others, we have to spend time explaining that our metric, though named the same as theirs, has a different meaning… and that they shoudn’t freak out just because we have a page full of Yellows; that just means all is fine. And, not surprisingly, we wind up spending time just converting Greens to Yellows when presenting our status internally, but keeping them Green so that we don’t get confused among ourselves.

Lack of shared context just creates dysfunction, but people in power like things the way they like them. The story suffers when the writer can’t communicate with a shared language.

2009 Super Bowl Ads Watch them anywhere; I saw them at Yahoo! Big Games Ads. For $3million per 30 second spot in some cases, one would expect the ads to really attempt to resonate. Instead, many threw shared meaning into the air with no real story, or a story relying on assumed shared context that just wasn’t there.

Who were Disasters:

Pepsi: MacGruber: hmmmm… a skit from SNL parodying a show over 20 years old, and expect Pepsi to resonate? All the data was there, but the story was gone: nothing held it together. It doesn’t really work on SNL either, so putting it on the superbowl seems like a mistake. And don’t get me started on the WillIAm-Dylan ad, trying to show that mashups are just a part of the history of life.

Coke Zero: Same problem. Reference an award winning commercial from over 20 years ago, but then add some twist to modernize it. Except the twist made no sense if you weren’t aware of the ongoing campaign that “Coke Zero stole the taste of the regular Coke”.

Coke Avatar: People seemed to like this one, but I can’t understand why. The story appears to be that people are disconnecting from the real world (every avatar, as cute or interesting, is really someone using their phone or laptop and disconnecting from those around them) and then Coke comes along and somehow cures this? It’s a great story to try… but the ad actually makes the avatars look cute and fun, so what Coke is really telling us is that a) its fun to ignore the world and be an avatar and b) Coke spoils it by taking you back to the real world when you touch it.

Denny’s: This is part of some confusing campaign around how breakfast isn’t supposed to be fun. They put people discussing depressing and serious issues over breakfast with hyper-happy food. Nannerpus tried a different slant, same issue. If you don’t really think of breakfast as hyper-happy, this really doesn’t make sense. In fact, what the story really says is : Breakfast is a place to discuss wiping people out and losing jobs. Great.

GE: What a waste. The scarecrow dancing on a power grid? I get the Oz reference. I didn’t get anything else. Again, no story.

Teleflora: Oh my. What a trainwreck. Flowers in a box insulting the recipient? What is the story here? Anything you can relate to?

Bud Light, Budweiser: Someone saw LineRider and thought it would make a great ad. More about horses. Drinking at work. At the end of the game, no one at my party could recall any of these ads.

Overstock: In a time when value and cost savings is the theme of the times, Overstock chooses instead focuses on cheap “bling”. The kids in the don’t understand what the basketball player is trying to tell us either.

Sprint: “What if X ran the world” for Roadies and Delivery Men. What is the point of this? That people know how to use phones?

All the car ads. Yes, almost every one was a disaster, save one (see below). Both domestic and foreign were amazing in their lack of differentiation and value.

Sobe: Using football players limits your story: you either have them act like players (Heroes ads) or out of type (Sobe). Both are boring, but at least the Heroes ad try a touch of respect for the players… and the viewers

What Worked?

Doritos Crystal Ball: Crotch shots are the universal language in football. BTW, this was the user submitted ad, so I gave it extra credit; if a professional shop did it, it would be in the other category.

CareerBuilder and Monster: In a time of rampant job loss, these guys don’t really need to advertise. And yet… they gave great ads that didn’t once focus on job loss, but on job change. Even those without jobs recognize that work mostly sucks (even if it is nicer to have one than not)

Coke Bugs: Flawed in places, but in general, a clever little story

Audi – A6 w/Jason Statham: Great for a few reasons: nice reference to the styles/feels/grainyness/music of the past decades in chase movies, nice snub of the other cars (the Merc can’t take the turn, the BMW goes off the road, the Lexus is just skipped), and of course the Transporter (he used an Audi in the first Transporter; I couldn’t sit through the second one).

Bridgestone – Space: Some reviewers hated this one, but I really enjoyed it. Very unexpected ending… but everyone got it.

Go Daddy: they did exactly what folks expected. They have established their brand in a fantastic way (chicks for geeks), and they leverage it well. And yet… they have a fine domain service; I use them for domain management.

Call them assumptions. Call them the “duh” factors. Call it what you will, but everything, every interaction, should be a story based on shared understandings. Try to use your audiences’ language; reference their POV in the story. Put a beginning, build to an end, wrap it up. Stories are how we communicate throughout history, so make the story understandable with shared terms (or at least define your needlessly made up ones).

These examples all show flops because of lack of story or lack of shared context, or both. All your visualization, all your analyses, they all need to flow into a story based on shared context.

Take a few minutes, watch some of these ads, think about how you communicate your data: Are you creating a story like Bridgestone or Monster, or are you throwing junk up and hoping your user will see something in it like Sobe?

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Hi Michael!

When I came to work this morning, my co-worker asked me how I was defining a certain metric, because she thought it “made a lot of sense, but hadn’t heard it defined that way. What was the name of it again?” I laughed because she was rightly confused and even I don’t remember what I might have called it! I said to her that we needed to have a brown bag lunch to build out a glossary of definitions to post on our walls…Loved your thoughts…very clearly articulated ;-)

In defense of Sprint(Nextel) ad…
The mashup of these two companies can be seen years after they merged. The roadies fit the Nextel ‘Git’ R Done’ brand that has my dad still yelling at his little yellow phone. Contrasted by the CEO ad, with the yellow Apple store look where he presents himself as a kinder, gentler Steve Jobs telling is how grand technology is. It is a dichotomy but if it sells phones, in this case, yellow could mean progress.